THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DANIEL J. ISENGART by Filip Noterdaeme
Note from the Publisher
The unique syntax, punctuation and capitalization in The Autobiography of Daniel J. Isengart are in meticulous homage. We encourage readers to compare the work at hand with
Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.
- OUTPOST19
Chapter 1: Before I came to New York
Daniel J. Isengart in Munich, 1991
"I led a fairly uninteresting life, I had no inspiration,
much boredom many worries, my life was miserably empty
and I suffered but did not know how to find a way out
of it."
The Three Geniuses: Filip Noterdaeme, Joey Arias and Meow Meow
"The three people of whom I wish to speak are
Filip Noterdaeme, Joey Arias and Meow Meow. I have
met many talented people, I have met some brilliant people
but I have only known three first class geniuses and in
each case on sight within me something rang. In no one
of the three cases have I been mistaken. In this way my
new full life began."
Chapter 2: My Arrival in New York
Evee Lynn, Promotional Shot for "La Plume De Ma Tante", Broadway Show, NYC 1959
"Another thing Evee Lynn liked to say was, in
life what you must do is give and give and then give some
more and then you are on your deathbed and somebody
will come and say you did not give enough."
Daniel J. Isengart as a Cater Waiter, NYC,ca. 1996
"I always say that working as a cater waiter gives one
the feeling that life is one half party and one half cleanup."
Daniel J. Isengart at The Duplex Theatre, NYC 1997 (Photo by Keith Hargreaves)
"It was at about that time that I did my first solo show,
Mind and Matter, at a little cabaret for beginners, the Duplex
in the West Village. It was a tormenting process."
Daniel J. Isengart's Cookie Production, NYC 1998
"I began preparing and selling them, thousands of them,
from my little home kitchen. I worked tirelessly. There
was the baking and glazing and then the packaging in
hand-painted boxes and the delivery on my bicycle. It was
good experience but after one very busy tiring Christmas
season I was ready for a life without cookies again. But
Daniel, some american friends said to me, quite simply all
you have to do is hire workers to do it all for you and pay
them as little as possible. This did not interest me."
Daniel J. Isengart with Joey Arias and Flotilla DeBarge, Backstage at Bar d'O, NYC 1999
"Seeing Joey Arias perform for the first time was, as
I always say, the beginning of my understanding of mixing
the frivolous with the profound in cabaret. Hitherto
I had been concerned with earnestness and expression.
Joey Arias's performance taught me to see the importance
of style and artifice."
Terry Brown Jr., ca. 1998
"The next week Filip Noterdaeme came to see Tender
is the Night with his long-time friend Terry Brown Jr.
He was a conservative republican homosexual who delighted
in good company, especially the company of goodlooking young men. He was not a literary type. (...) Terry
Brown Jr. was also a passionate cabaret aficionado who
had known the incomparable Hildegarde and made his
fortune as an interior decorator for Leona Helmsley and
Lena Horne, caring little for the former and much for the
latter."
The Pussy Painting, 1991
"This, [Filip Noterdaeme] said, is the painting that got me expelled from art school. He added, I call it the Pussy Painting and, do you like it. I said, it certainly is good product placement. Filip Noterdaeme laughed. Then he explained how the Pussy Painting was a fusion of two famous paintings, Courbet's L'origine du monde and Magritte's La trahison des images, and the only self-portrait he had kept from his art school days. It was enormously interesting but that night I must admit I was more interested in Filip Noterdaeme's groin."
To find out more about the Pussy Painting, click here.
To continue to Chapter 3, click here.
The Autobiography of Daniel J. Isengart is available in local bookstores and on AMAZON.
